About Us; About This Website

Magazines shaped our lives, and the rest is history.

The great illustrators of the period 1850-1950 had a tremendous influence on us and
the rest of the world. One of the most popular ways they presented
their work was as the cover
art for the mass and specialist magazines that were published under thousands of titles
and in millions and millions of copies. We know today of Norman Rockwell and Maxfield
Parrish, but there were hundreds and thousands of other artists whose work is now
forgotten except by collectors and specialists. Some have been honored by art books
about their work, but most are now simply unknown to the general public.

One reason for this undeserved obscurity is that their work is quite difficult to find.
Bound volumes of these magazines, both in libraries and in the hands of private
collectors, usually do not include the covers, for reasons we today find
hard to imagine. You must look for individual copies of these magazines, sold as
collector's items and available in variable condition.
Old magazines turn up regularly on eBay and in shops, but they are expensive, and it is
difficult to find, analyze, and store them in one's home. Hence MagazineArt.org.

We scan and photograph magazine covers from this
era: as many as we can find, of whatever subject matter. The only requirement is that
the issue must -have- a cover design. We prefer the ones that change from issue to
issue, but we'll record them even if they simply list the contents of the magazine.
We've had images donated, and we've picked them up where we can.
At this time we have thousands of them, many of them suitable for display but all
requiring some processing in Photoshop before they are presentable.

We've started to put them up here on the web, on our website www.MagazineArt.org.
This will take a long time, since it's not funded by the MacArthur foundation or the
Pew Charitable Trust; or, for that matter, anyone but ourselves.

At the present time there are several gigabytes of cover images on this site,
linked from the homepage and the pages linked to it. We also have information about
magazines, their publishers, editors, artists, and publishing companies. More to come. Go take a look!

We are located in San Jose, California. You can
send us e-mail or write to us:

MagazineArt.org
1181 Martin Ave.
San Jose, CA
95126 USA

The telephone number is (408) 298-3269.

Before you call us, or write us, one thing to note: We're not magazine dealers, and we don't
buy magazines. Also, we can't tell you what your vintage magazines are worth; your best bet is to
look for completed auctions at eBay, and see what similar magazines went for (only pay attention to
the ones that actually sold).

Magazine illustrations from issues published prior to 1923 are in the public
domain in accordance with the copyright laws of the United States, and are
presented here with the best quality we can find. Illustrations published
in 1923 and after may be covered by original and/or renewed copyright, and will
be presented here only in 650-pixel-wide (or smaller) images, solely for educational purposes,
under the doctrine of "fair use." We always strive to give credit
to the current owner of copyright; if you are the owner of the
copyright on illustrations appearing in these pages, and feel that
their presentation here violates your rights, contact us and we will
immediately remove them. However, before you write us: We'll be very
happy to include your copyright notice,
and a link to you so that someone wanting to license the images can get in
touch with you directlyconsider the value to you of their presence here before
calling your attorneys.

As far as we know we have the right to look at these cover images, and to present them
to you for your education and illumination. See "Copyrights," above. If you disagree, contact us and we'll fix whatever's wrong.

Nothing on this website gives us any rights over you, and likewise nothing gives you any rights over us.
If you think we've done something we shouldn't have done, let us know and we'll attempt to put things right.

To the best of our knowledge all of the cover images presented here are rated "G" and may be viewed by
participants of all ages. Similarly, our histories of magazine publication, artist's lives, and editors and
publishers are presented with the best of intentions and do not intentionally incorrectly denigrate, deprecate,
or libel any persons, living or dead. If we have erred we will endeavor to correct our errors as assiduously
as possible.

Let us reiterate: we're doing our best to provide information, and conflict is not our thing; what we
really want to do is provide the best information we can about as much of this field as possible.

We'll never tell anyone anything about you, unless you tell us we should.
If you do us a favor (like sending us money or cover scans or letting us
photograph your magazines) we'll publicly thank you on our "Thanks To..."
page, but only if you want us to. Likewise, we'll include a link to your
sales catalog or eBay inventory, if you want us to. Otherwise, no.

However, if you follow links from this website to some other website
(one of our advertisers, or one of the information links that we put up
because we think you might find them interesting) you're on your own. We can't
vouch for any of them and what they do with their information about you is
between you and them.

Personally, if someone misuses my private information I will take extreme
offense at it, and I'm sure you feel the same way. So we promise to do what
we say here.

Send Us Cover Images

We work hard to find, scan, photograph, and process (in Photoshop) magazine cover images for our files. We
can't do it all ourselves. If you collect old magazines and would like to help us find
more good material to share with the world write us.
We can use scans you already have, or make scans or digital photographs. We'll be happy to give
you a copy of the scan after we've cleaned it up in Photoshop. We'll
give you credit in the "Source" note on the image page. Plus, your name will be listed on our Thanks! page, if you want it to be.

Money

Nobody's getting paid for this, and we've volunteered our time and traveland
the webhosting costs. If you're the MacArthur Foundation or the Pew Charitable Trust,
please send us mail.

If you're on a smaller budget, but you want to help a little bit, you can send money
by using the PayPal donation box here.

Or you can use the Amazon Honor System to make a donation:

 Michael Ward, Director, MagazineArt.org

Update history: This page originally created 22 April 2003; latest revision 23 July 2012.